


sweat and vomit and maybe a little progress

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sickfic, Vomiting, and nishinoya's mother???, mention of tanaka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2103510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Asahi pays a sick Nishinoya a visit, and it goes... exactly as well as you would expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweat and vomit and maybe a little progress

Asahi wasn’t sure why Tanaka thought he would be up for this.

One moment, he was leaving the gymnasium from practice, thinking about how that one pickle brand his dad really liked would be on sale today and he should really pick some up from the local store -- when out of nowhere, Tanaka had come running up and practically _bowling_ into him, throwing papers in his hands and rambling something or another about how he had forgotten about how he had promised his parents he’d go _somewhere_ and pick up _something_ and it all happened so fast that by the time Tanaka had speeded off like a cartoon character leaving a literal cloud of dust in his wake, Asahi was left standing in a daze wondering why was he suddenly holding chemistry worksheets? Was he taking chemistry this year? Had he even taken chemistry in his life? _Should_ he have taken chemistry? Oh god what if he couldn’t graduate high school.

It had taken him a minute or two to remember that Nishinoya had been particularly sick recently and that Tanaka had been the one dropping off his schoolwork for the past two days. And with that realization, the pit of his stomach dropped. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been to Nishinoya’s place before, but… the first time he had visited, walking through the open door wondering if he had even gotten the right place, Nishinoya’s mom had panicked and shrieked at the sight of him and their next door neighbor called the police and the whole thing was just awful and Asahi wasn’t sure why he was even thinking about it because it just made him sad and upset and confused. (After all, it hadn’t even been the first time he had the police called on him for just. Being around. Maybe he really _should_ shave.)

But he supposed his suffering underclassman needed him. The team had made a lot of joking quips about “so idiots _do_ get colds!” and so on and so forth, but if Asahi was going to be honest with himself, he was definitely a bit worried for the guy who typically had more spirit and health than any one person should ever be blessed with.

So he sucked up all the courage he could from the very root of his soul, called his dad to let him know where he would be, picked up some fruit from the grocery store (he thought maybe it was only polite after the ruckus he had caused that one time), and walked the nerve-rattling journey over to Nishinoya’s.

It was just hitting the dinner rush hour at the Nishinoya family restaurant when he arrived, so when he slid open the front door he was instantly hit with the sounds of chattering businessmen, the clinking of beer bottles, and the sizzling of grilling okonomiyaki. He was greeted swiftly by a booming holler of, “How many people!!” from a portly woman working the grill at a table of three tourists, and he raised a shaky hand in greeting as she turned toward him with recognition swiftly dawning in her sharp eyes.

To his relief, a broad and familiar smile spread across her face (incredible, he noted, how strong genetics could be) as she immediately strode over to him, slapping a strong hand on his back as he bowed in greeting and chuckling when he yelped.

“My, my! Another one of Yuu’s delinquent friends today!” (Which made his face fall a bit. He was being compared to _Tanaka?_ ) “He’s upstairs! Yuu! _YUU! ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS IS HERE!!_ ” And amazingly, even amidst the noise and clatter of the restaurant, Asahi swore he could hear a replying shout coming from the staircase in back of the building somewhere.

Genetics really were amazing.

After ducking his head toward Nishinoya’s mother again and handing off the plastic grocery bag of apples he had bought earlier, he weaved his way through the maze of tables to the staircase and climbed his way up. Up the rickety, wooden stairs that were struggling to support his weight. (Was this entire house just an obstacle course to test his inner strength? He was starting to feel convinced that the world was just out to get him by this point.)

He stepped into the apartment and was immediately greeted by the sight of Nishinoya laying in the middle of the living room. On a futon, stuffed under an electric blanket and two comforters, with an electric fan blowing on him, with a towel stacked atop of a forehead that was too small to hold the whole thing. And potentially what looked like a cooling pad underneath the blanket covers? Not to mention, Nishinoya’s hair obviously wasn’t gelled up like usual, making him look even more like a bundled up child. The sight would be kind of pitiful if it weren’t also a little comical.

Shuffling off his sneakers, Asahi stepped over quietly, though he wasn’t sure why because Nishinoya noticed him immediately and sprang up into a sitting position, the towel falling right off of his forehead with only a slight unsteady sway of his body at the sudden movement.

“Asahi! Thank _god!_ You have no idea how boring it is here, I like skipping class but Mom keeps saying I can’t go to volleyball either and all I’ve been eating is _porridge_ and with how Mom makes it I’d almost rather go back to class–” The way Nishinoya was firing off words, Asahi could barely even tell he was sick. Sure, he was a bit more red than usual, but now that he was fired up from having some actual social interaction, he was somehow rambling off about how he missed school lunches and what kinds of breads he was going to buy when he was back and should he get a tonkatsu sandwich or a yakisoba bread first and dear _god_ help him.

Asahi unzipped his backpack and pulled out the homework sheets, and holding them up with an apologetic smile effectively cut off Nishinoya’s stream of words in an instant.

Nishinoya’s mouth pressed into a firm scowl before he silently _fwump_ ed back down onto the blankets and pulled the covers over his entire head.

“ _Nishinoya!!_ ” Asahi cried with exasperation, dropping the papers on the floor to clamber over and tug at the blankets, trying to free this impossible boy from his tiny cocoon of ignorance. “You have to do it at some point! You know Daichi won’t let you go if you fail your tests again! Nishinoya! Nishi _noyyyaaa._ ”

Despite the pleas, Nishinoya maintained a shockingly strong hold on his blankets for a sick man. Even as Asahi gave more cries of _Daichi will murder you!_ and _Suga will murder you!_ and _Takeda-sensei might be kind of disappointed in you!!_ , the pile of blankets and cooling pads and towels didn’t stir.

“Asahi!! I can’t think about homework when I am literally _dying_ over here,” Nishinoya finally groaned, muffled from underneath the heavy blankets.

Wait. What?

“Wait, what?” Asahi blinked dumbly, and before he knew it, fast and intense panic was welling up in his chest as he found himself frantically shaking at Nishinoya’s nest with his hand. “You’re _dying?_  What do you have?! Nishinoya, did you talk to a doctor? I didn’t know it was that bad! Oh my god, I’m so sorry, if I had known–! _Nishinoy_ –!”

And out of nowhere, Nishinoya finally emerged from his hiding place, jolting up and slapping both palms against the sides of Asahi’s face with enough force to make him jump.

“Asahi! What am I going to _do_ with you?” Eyebrows furrowed, Nishinoya’s expression was nothing but exasperated concern, and he smacked Asahi’s cheeks a few more times for good measure. “It was a joke! C’mon!”

Asahi, who now felt his life was thoroughly in shambles as he realized that he was welling up a bit at this point, paused to process this. After a minute, he eventually just replied with a small, “Oh.”

Nishinoya _tut tut_ ted at him and started scrubbing at Asahi’s tearful eyes with the heel of a hand with a little more force than necessary, as if that was any proper way to comfort an emotional pal.

“Chin up, Ace! I’ll be up and outta here in no time! It’s not like I’d let something as small as this get me for long!” He gave Asahi one of his killer beaming grins, one that seemed way too wide for his own face, and one that Asahi couldn’t help but smile a small smile back to.

But then as things stilled a bit, Asahi couldn’t help but suddenly become hyper aware of… what was happening right now. Which was them being very close to each other. With Nishinoya’s hands cupping his face. They were sweaty and clammy but somehow he couldn’t find himself to care about that. Nishinoya’s face was… very close. His hair was down and that was sort of cute and with that one particular thought crossing his mind, everything suddenly got very confusing and jittery at once. Especially in the pit of his stomach.

Maybe Nishinoya had noticed something too, because he suddenly went stock still, a blank look coming across his face as his entire body seemed to stiffen.

“Nishi… noya…?” Asahi mumbled, fearing the worst. This was not doing wonders for Asahi’s already frazzled nerves. Not a single bit.

“Excuse me,” Nishinoya stated simply, removing his hands from Asahi’s face and bowing his head.

And then he threw up.

Oh my god that was _not_ the best place for Nishinoya to throw up because now there was vomit in Asahi’s lap too and on the blankets and Asahi was by _far_ not equipped or capable of handling this situation at _all_ because he himself hadn’t even vomited in years and oh my god what do you even _do_ when someone is puking and there’s vomit on you and the floor and it was _really really_ gross and suddenly the only response that felt appropriate was to panic and scream at the top of his lungs. Loudly.

And as he should’ve guessed because the world was definitely working against him at all times, Nishinoya’s mother kicked open the door to the apartment wielding spatulas and hollering as if her poor sick son was getting murdered, which meant that someone in the restaurant below thought to call the police, which meant that Asahi now both had vomit all over his pants _and_ he had to deal with the town police _again_ , who definitely recognized him by this point in his life. While Nishinoya was still throwing up in a wastebasket somewhere in the room.

Tanaka had definitely entrusted the wrong person for this.

 

Everything had been sorted out with the exasperated police officers, and Nishinoya’s mother had only laughed in good humor as she slapped Asahi’s back some more and promptly cleaned up the mess Nishinoya had made. Both the blankets and Asahi’s pants had been thrown in the wash, so in the meantime, Asahi sort of had to hang around until that was done with. As grateful as he was for the kind offer to clean his pants, he was also about ready to just go home and wallow in his room and stew in humiliation and despair.

Unfortunately, there were also no extra pants in the entire household that would come even close to fitting him, so now Asahi was just… sitting around in the living room in his boxer shorts with his head in his hands.

At this rate, he definitely wasn’t getting home until _late_ , and he had homework to do by tomorrow. He could probably do it right now, as he was waiting for his pants to be cleaned. But to be honest, he couldn’t stop thinking about how his only reaction to his friend puking up everywhere had just been to scream, and amongst everything that had happened he felt pretty terrible about it. Couldn’t he have at least, like… held Nishinoya’s hair back or something? That was what you were supposed to do, right? Maybe get water? Carry him to the toilet?? Anything but freak out and almost get arrested, Asahi was sure.

So now he couldn’t really concentrate on anything right now but sitting by Nishinoya’s (now clean) futon, trying to see if there was anything to do to help at all, but he had already gotten him a glass of water, rinsed out the towels, peeled and sliced one of the apples he had brought over himself… He even tidied up the living room a bit, just out of sheer restlessness. But in the end, he supposed it didn’t really matter because vomiting everywhere had apparently tuckered out Nishinoya enough that he fell asleep pretty much right afterward.

Seeing Nishinoya like this felt… odd. His usual energy had been pretty much intact when Asahi had entered the apartment, but now that he was dead asleep, it was easier to see the sheen of sweat on his forehead even under the towel and the uncomfortable crease between his eyebrows, as if sleeping itself was a struggle. Seeing Nishinoya sit still for more than five minutes at a time was a weird sight by itself, let alone seeing Nishinoya in pain.

Seeing him this way felt almost like an invasion of his privacy, and Asahi distracted himself with replacing the towel on his forehead, even though he had already done so just a minute ago. But as he was about to place the fresh towel on his head, Nishinoya made a grumbling noise and turned onto his side, and in the movement shifted the covers enough to reveal one of his hands from underneath, facing palm up.

Solely on instinct Asahi felt himself reaching for it with his own hand, but halted in time to realize what he was doing. What _was_ he doing? Was it even okay for him to grab his sick friend’s hand while he was sleeping? That was… kind of weird, wasn’t it? After all, what if Nishinoya’s mother walked in on that sort of scene? It wouldn’t lead to anything good, that was certain.

But even with the rational side of him freaking out, there were times when his gut feeling won out over everything else. Like when he was playing volleyball, and his body knew before his brain when the best time to run up for a spike was. When to jump up at exactly the right moment with the ball to execute a perfect jump serve. When to run over and raise his arms for a solid receive off of a spike.

Like those sort of instinctual moments, before he could even finish thinking about what sort of implications holding a hand could bring about, he found that his hand was already there, covering Nishinoya’s small and sweaty palm. Somehow, actually doing it cleared all the worries and anxieties out of his head.

And like a venus fly trap, Nishinoya’s hand swiftly clamped tight around Asahi's, startling him with how sudden the motion was. Asahi glanced at Nishinoya’s face, and sure enough, there was a smug and victorious grin breaking through his expression, even though his eyes were still stubbornly closed in a pathetic attempt to further feign sleep.

Asahi found himself smiling, huffing a small exasperated sigh.

”That’s just mean, you know.”

Even if the act was up, Nishinoya remained silent and just tightened his sweaty grip on Asahi’s hand, and Asahi let him, even if it did feel little gross. He waited patiently as he felt Nishinoya drift off again, feeling the death grip on his hand gradually loosen as the minutes passed, and decided that maybe that math assignment due tomorrow wasn’t really _that_ important anymore.

 

Nishinoya was fully recovered by the next morning, Asahi’s math teacher was disappointed, and Asahi himself threw up in the middle of Japanese class.

Everything was awful and terrible and gross and Asahi went home early and Daichi _definitely_ wasn’t happy to hear that they would be losing their ace in practices after days of lacking their libero. But it was almost kind of worth it when Nishinoya paid a visit that evening, carrying with him a bundle of worksheets, a bag of apples, and a wide grin.

And if Asahi found opportunities to slip his hand out from under the covers, it was definitely because he was too asleep to realize it.


End file.
